I don't think the title is fair to what's going on here. To be sure, there has been a reconsideration of Lee, but it's not as negative as one might think. Often

I don't think the title is fair to what's going on here. To be sure, there has been a reconsideration of Lee, but it's not as negative as one might think. Often the counterfactuals presented here and in other articles forget the context of the time. For example, Lee certainly was in love with Virginia, but it could have hardly been given up in a war of attrition: besides being the Confederate capital it also had the Confederacy's major ironworks. Some writers also often don't look at the events of the Overland Campaign and its aftermath in 1864. Lee fought largely defensively and though he bled the Union, he didn't stop it. In fact, by the time the campaign ended at Richmond his army was severely reduced and morale was bad bad bad. It's true that Lee was overly aggressive. His arrogance led to bloodlettings like Malvern Hill and Gettysburg. But his approach (attack attack attack) compensated for the fact that Lee's army was much smaller. His ability to keep the Union off balance meant that the Confederacy held on to the majority of Virginia until 1864. By 1864 in the West the Confederacy was cut off from Texas and Arkansas, had lost most of Mississippi and Louisiana, and a Union army was about to plunge into Georgia. We should certainly take Lee off of his pedestal. His generalship was a product of the times. It might be fairer to say that of the generals fighting the Civil War, he was the best.